Flipside
by Jack's Sword
Summary: If you think about it, the world of pokemon is really violent. This is the story of one charmander's life. Rated T for violence.
1. Chapter 1: Birth

Chapter 1: Birth

Disclaimer: I own each personality, except a few in the fifth chapter, but the character designs, the attacks, and the world are not mine.

_A/N: All fighting in this story come from real pokemon attacks, and are used by the appropriate species (with one TM and one HM). Except I had a charmeleon use stomp._

An ekans slithered up a tree, occasionally jutting out its tongue as it tracked the scent. It curled onto a branch and found its goal… a nest of pidgey eggs. On the eggs was their mother, also a pidgey. The ekans crept up onto the branch, coiled, and struck, sinking its fangs into the bird. Its prey leapt off the branch, the ekans still attached. As the poison filled her veins, the pidgey slowly fell to the ground. She struggled for a while, then died, and was eaten.

As he was finishing his meal, the ekans noticed that he was lying in a bush. Suddenly, as he swallowed the last of the bird, something strange happened. His body glowed bright white, and he started to change. Although somehow knowing that he had the power to stop and reverse the process, he willingly allowed it to continue. He felt his rattle merge into his body, then stretch out. His neck widened and he felt his mouth become more pointed, his fangs longer. He could literally feel his colors change. Slowly, the glow disappeared, and an arbok was left behind. He finished his meal, and then curled up. He would sleep until he was hungry again.

Meanwhile, a few feet off, a charmeleon gathered her eggs and counted them. Inside the nest were five eggs, containing nearly grown charmanders. Satisfied by the count, she walked off again in search of prey, not noticing the arbok waiting nearby.

Gradually, the hunger grew in the arbok's stomach, then into his mind. After a few days of rest, he was again ready to hunt. He had observed the charmeleon returning consistently to one point, and decided that he should investigate. It was hatching season, after all. He watched the mother walk off again, and then slithered to the nest. As he had expected. He glided from egg to egg, unhooking his lower jaw and consuming them. When his mouth was halfway around the fourth egg, he heard a cracking noise and a head burst from the one untouched egg. The confused charmander took his first look at the world, and saw the predator. Instinctively, he knew what was happening. "Charmander! Char! Char!" The arbok was unconcerned. He was calling his momma, so what? She was too far to save him. Then he felt some tremors in the ground. Maybe she wasn't!

The carmeleon heard her child's cries and ran. She had never heard that small little voice, but she could hear the direction, and these were not her first children. As she reached the clearing, she saw the snake, and pounced. She landed directly behind his head, launching the egg out of his mouth. He struggled, but was helpless as she slashed his head off with her claws. He stopped fighting. Then she slit his back open, hoping desperately that her babies were still alive. No such luck. Then she turned to the egg she had dislodged. It had hit a tree. As she investigated further, she saw that there were shatter marks where it had hit, but more importantly, it had two, thick grooves filled with poison from where the arbok had bitten. In a last ditch effort, she rolled the egg over, draining the poison as best she could. Here she waited for hours, hoping for it to hatch. It didn't. Suddenly, she felt something touch her leg. Still hyper, she spun around and almost killed it. She barely stopped in time to see what it was. Her one remaining child. She put her arms around it and carried it off. They would not return.

_A/N: I plan to update this story every Friday at about 4:00 EST._

_A new challenge every week! This week's challenge: where is this story going? I love reviews._

_Anyone for a poll? My profile has a poll on what I will write next. A popular idea is more likely, but not necessarily where I will go next or ever._


	2. Chapter 2: Alone

Chapter 2: Alone

_A/N: I have been using the word cut to refer to the attack scratch sometimes because it often sounds better. The attack cut is actually never in this story._

The charmander had grown up safely. He was now a yearling. From birth, his claws were his primary source of defense, although he always had an incredibly startling roar. After a few months, he had begun to learn to spew out flames, and recently learned to contain the flames in his mouth, creating a smokescreen. He was growing up. Soon he would become a charmeleon and begin his solitary travels.

His mother had three rules for him. First, he must never, without exception, under no circumstances, allow himself to be seen by a human. Particularly if he saw one holding a round object with two distinct colors, known as a monster ball. If he was seen, and he didn't see a monster ball, he was to shoot a smokescreen and run away as quickly as possible. If he did see anything round, he was to run zigzag.

The second rule was to be cautious around any other creatures. Try to communicate with them if necessary, but always be careful about other predators. She taught him how to hunt easy prey, such as caterpie, metapod, and kakuna. She also taught him how to carefully hunt more dangerous prey, like weedle, pidgey, magicarp, and goldeen.

The third rule involved magicarp. When told to be cautious around them, the child snorted, and asked why. Then he learned of his greatest weakness. His mother pointed to his tail, which resembled a match. "If that flame goes out, you die. Even a weak magicarp, unable to do anything but splash water on you, can be dangerous, even deadly if underestimated." The child avoided water from then on.

The mother and son were hunting one day, about to pounce on a caterpie. The mother leapt forward, her arm over her eyes to block the inevitable string of webbing shooting out of the small creature. As the spray paused for a moment, she picked up the bug in both hands, holding the web-launching end away from her. Then she shot flames at it until it stopped moving. She cut it up, and she and her son burned it thoroughly before eating.

Partway through their meal, she froze, and listened. Her son saw her motion and copied it. He could hear a faint noise of motion coming from above. Suddenly, his mother moved. She ignited the edge of a nearby tree as quickly as possible, and then cut away the charred bark. She then stuck the edge of her tail into the open space and insisted that her son copy. He had seen this before. He imitated her, pointed the edge of his tail up, and stood still. Drops of rain started to fall. They stood, totally still, feeling the rain drip onto their heads, running down their backs and onto the base of their tails. If they relaxed the edges of their tails for one second, they knew it could mean death. They were trapped, helpless to do anything but try to survive.

After a few hours, the rain subsided. They went back to their home, partway up a steep, rocky hill. To enter, they walked up the slope, and then walked completely horizontally into their hole under a rock.

Once inside their hole, they were about to collapse from exhaustion when the mother froze. She heard something from deeper in. Suddenly, a sandslash leapt at her, catching her by surprise and slitting her throat. She tried to scratch it, but it curled up into a defensive ball. Then she burned it. Gradually, it was being hurt by the flame, but her blood loss was killing her faster. Deep in her home, defending her child, she died.

The charmander saw only blackness as the flame disappeared on his mother's tail, and then he understood. Listening, he could hear the sandslash moving. He dashed out into the woods, as it started to rain. Grabbing a leaf, he held it over his tail. It was only a temporary fix, but better than nothing. By the time he reached a tree, holes were starting to appear in the leaf, which was being charred by his tail. Copying his mother, he burned, and then tried to scratch a groove into the tree, but he wasn't strong enough. He could hear drops of rain turn to steam as they hit his tail. He was going to die. Suddenly, something wrapped around his legs.

He struggled and fought as an arbok spun around his body. His greatest fear had come true. Unexpectedly, the arbok was speaking.

"I will not harm you unless you burn me. Will you?" the snake asked. The charmander shook his head. "Good," the snake replied. Now listen. I am going to protect you from this rain by extending my neck over your tail. Do not fight me."

The charmander felt the arbok act on his words. He only wanted to know one thing. "Why?"

"I am full. I do not need you as food. Why should I let you die unnecessarily? Surely you follow my sentiment?"

The charmander said nothing, thinking about this strange new idea. They stayed quiet until the rain stopped, early in the morning, and the arbok slithered off. He was alone.

He spent most of his first motherless day trying to catch prey. The rain was totally gone and he needed food. And sleep, but that was impossible. He needed to find a safe place.

Near the end of the day, he saw two, long, blue things moving. He looked up. Was this a human? He saw the round objects on the human's waist and knew for sure. Hiding deeper in the bush, he waited. Suddenly, a sandslash appeared in his face. Danger! He dashed out of the bush and ran, all the while creating a smokescreen. The sandslash ran through the smoke, grabbed him both by the neck and just below his tail fire, and carried him back to the human.

As they returned to the human, it drew out a ball, pointed it at the charmander, and pressed a button. The ball sent out a beam of light, capturing the creature inside. He fought hard, with the little strength he had left and broke away, being beamed back to the ground and destroying the ball. The human ordered the sandslash. "Slash! But be careful not to kill it." For some reason, the creature obeyed. The charmander felt intense pain sear through his chest, then he collapsed, and was almost grateful for the next ball to end his anguish.

_A/N: I plan to update this story every Friday at about 4:00 EST._

_A new challenge every week! This week's challenge: guess what region they're in! Is it Kanto, Johto, Hoen, or Orre? I love reviews._

_Anyone for a poll? My profile has a poll on what I will write next. A popular idea is more likely, but not necessarily where I will go next or ever._


	3. Chapter 3: Slave

Chapter 3: Slave

Being inside the ball was strange. He was only semi-conscious. He felt like he was floating, gradually spinning, in such a thin air that it gave no resistance. His pain was there, but it was like a side note, almost not mattering. He knew that he was in critical condition, but it somehow didn't matter.

In what seemed like minutes, he was released again, onto a soft, cold surface. The pain had returned in full. Instantly, he struggled, fought anything and everything around him. He slashed deep gashes into the surface he was laying on, and soft stuff flew out in chunks. Then he heard the word.

"Stop!"

He stopped. His one arm was over his head, his other deeply imbedded into the soft surface. He was very uncomfortable. And he was paralyzed.

"Relax, and let yourself be treated."

There the voice was again. And, like the first time, he obeyed. His mind fought the impulses, but didn't even slow them down. He had to obey. He literally had no choice. It was infuriating.

A woman came over and started shooting his wounds with a spray bottle. It hurt worse than the initial injury. He tried to fight, but again found that he couldn't. After a few minutes, he stopped trying and just accepted his predicament. He transferred all his effort to figuring out what was going on. The voice was familiar. Oh yes, his first human. The one who had ordered the sandslash to… a strange, burning feeling came over him. Anger. He hated that voice. And its owner. There it was again. The human was speaking. He couldn't understand the words; the language was foreign to him. He lay there, just listening to the emotions behind the words.

"Aren't you done yet?!?" the voice complained.

"Almost. Be patient. By the way, where did you find this charmander? They're very rare." The second voice came from the woman holding the pain bottle.

"I was traveling through the woods between Cerulean and Celadon." The voice replied.

"Really? That's a little unconventional. The detour through Saffron is actually faster, because of the roads."

"Yeah, well, I was too much in a hurry to plan like that. And I got a charmander, so it worked out for the best. You're still working? I thought you said you were almost done!"

"Almost there… done!" the woman replied.

The charmander felt the sprays stop. He reached for his wound; he had no orders against that. His chest felt like it was never in pain. Suddenly, he felt himself being drug into his ball. He had no ability to struggle anymore. Somehow, it wasn't even a possibility.

Back into the nothingness, and back out in what seemed like a second. Suddenly, he was looking at a plant with a yellow bulb on top. A Bellsprout.

"Ember!" the familiar human called.

Against his own will, he opened up his mouth and launched a blast of flame at the creature. It was charred and collapsed.

A woman yelled something and the creature started to struggle to straighten itself.

"Scratch!" the male human called out, and charmander obeyed. His claws cut right through the stalk, leaving a yellow bulb hanging by a thread. He walked forward to eat his prey, but was suddenly sucked back into his ball. Why? He had almost killed it, why was he not allowed to use its energy?

A few moments later, he appeared again. In front of him was a large, red flower with a blue thing under it. A vileplume. He looked around, seeing that he was basically in the same place, but that the human opponent was different. Suddenly, the human opponent, a woman, called something to her pokemon. Spores launched from it into the air, coming for him. He leapt around, dodging some of the spores, and burning others. A few hit him, fixing themselves across his body.

"Ember!" his human called, calmly.

His body tried to obey, but for a moment he couldn't move! Suddenly, the creature started to glow. The charmander took this as a bad sign, and ran to hide. He leapt at the closest hiding place, just as a beam of rainbow energy shot at him. He had hidden behind the opposing trainer. The woman was launched high into the air before hitting the wall behind her with a resounding crash.

The charmander's owner and the vileplume hesitated. But the charmander didn't. He leapt at the creature, slashing and burning it, his body sometimes resisting because of the spores over it, but working well enough. A few minutes later, the creature was almost unrecognizable and struggling weakly. Suddenly, the charmander started to glow.

He glowed with a bright, white light, and could feel himself getting larger, his irises contracting, a point coming out his head. No! Not now, not like this! He wanted to become a charmeleon, but didn't want to give the human the satisfaction of a stronger slave. He fought the change, but realized that it was not under his control. Somehow he knew it was his master's decision. He felt his skin darken and his claws whiten and extend, then the light faded away.

He was a charmeleon. His emotions changed, grew more rebelliousness. The anger he had felt at his owner molded into a burning hatred. He could also feel his strength increase. That is, he could literally feel his control over himself enhance. Not enough to break the human's power, but he somehow knew that if he continued to grow stronger, eventually he might gain control of himself again. Hope returned.

Then his master walked over to the injured woman, and picked up a small, metal badge. Suddenly, the charmeleon could literally feel the chains of bondage strengthen. This might be a long fight.

_A/N: A new challenge every week! This week's challenge: Will the charmander every break free of his owner's control? If so, how, and in what chapter, four or five? I love reviews._


	4. Chapter 4: Quest

Chapter 4: Quest

As time went on, the charmeleon adapted to his new life. He still resented his master, but generally obeyed his commands without bothering to try to resist. Only occasionally, he would try once more to fight the orders, but then always obeyed. His life now consisted of fighting and floating in nothingness.

Although their names were unknown to him, the charmeleon started to recognize important pokemon owners. There was one really powerful ghost/psychic user that kept beating them. Eventually, they moved on. They went around fighting randomly for a while, but then fought another important trainer, one who used poison type pokemon. That fight was excruciatingly painful, but not particularly difficult. After the fight ended, he handed the owner another badge, and the charmeleon felt a burst of strength.

From there, they moved across the ocean. This was terrifying to the charmeleon, who had to fight from the head of a gyarados. Occasionally, his tail flickered, but he always managed to save it from completely going out. Next, they landed on a bunch of cold islands, then back into the water, and onto another island. This one was completely covered by a town. Predictably, this town also had an important trainer, who his owner went to fight. This man lived in a volcano. The charmeleon found the surroundings strangely comforting. His tail burned bright in the dry, hot environment. However, his owner wasn't particularly settled.

The charmeleon focused on his opponent. It was a magmar. "Initial attack run, now!" charmeleon's owner called out. He charged, staring at magmar with his scariest face. As it hesitated, a little nervous, the charmeleon raised his head back to fire his "flamethrower", a sort of enhanced "ember" that he had recently learned to use. As he was about to launch his attack, the magmar ejected a beam of light, and a bright glow, like that on a particularly sunny day appeared in the room. The charmeleon launched his flame, feeling enhanced by the beam of light. The fire burst out like never before, until the magmar was invisible, hidden in the flame. The charmeleon kept up his attack, but started to notice something strange. A bulge was moving up his fire stream toward him. He tried to stop his attack, but had no control. As it halted directly in front of him, the bulge lifted its arms off its neck and opened its eyes. Then it, the magmar, punched him with a fiery fist, launching him away. It followed this up with its own flamethrower.

The fire burned at charmeleon's flesh, but not bad. He unleashed a smokescreen, rolled to the side, and waited for his next orders. They came quick. "Rage!" Charmeleon obeyed quickly, rushing up to the magmar and slamming into it. The fiery creature flew through the air and landed hard. The charmeleon didn't hesitate to pursue his attack. He leapt at his foe, punching and kicking and head butting and scratching and… he lost any control over reality. A few minutes later, he came to his senses with full body burns. But he had won. Suddenly, he glowed.

He stretched into a full sized charizard, growing a full two feet higher, and quadrupling in size. His single horn grew longer and split in two. His snout widened. Then, two strange objects poked from his back. They stretched into full wings. The glow faded away.

The charizard slumped to the ground, still badly burnt, and was pulled back into his ball. He tried to resist the pull, just out of curiosity, and could feel a lot more control, but it was still not visible. He was pulled back inside his ball, and had to wait out the rest of the battle. In what felt like less than a second, he felt an energy boost, similar to the one from when his master got the poison-pokemon badge.

In what seemed like another few seconds, the charizard felt himself eject at a hospital. His new mind was strange. He was still the same individual he had always been, but as the nervous attitude of the charmander was replaced by the anger of the charmeleon, so that anger was now replaced by a strange sort of carelessness. Sure, he was being healed just to again be enslaved and forced to beat up other pokemon and be injured himself, but so what? It didn't really matter.

Casually, he listened to the voices in the room. He couldn't understand the words, but so what? His trainer was bragging, waving his new badge in someone's face. The nurse was patting a tentacruel, soothing it. It looked like it wanted to kill her. Some of the other trainers were casually chatting, sitting in groups of two or three. A few, the charizard noticed with a mild twinge of jealousy, were letting their pokemon walk around free. There was some commotion at the door, and the charizard noticed someone walking in, waving something over his head.

Most of the trainers, including the charizard's own rushed over to the new arrival. They started shouting things to him, waving balls and money at him. After a while, he pointed to one person with two balls and a huge wad of money and nodded. The person came over to him and gave him the stuff, receiving the strange object. After a moment, the charizard realized that the two balls had inhabitants! What was this thing?

He looked harder. The object was flat and perfectly circular. One side was shiny and metallic, but he couldn't see the other. Exactly in the center of the circle was a circular hole.

Suddenly, the charizard was sucked into his ball. He hadn't even seen his owner walk up. A few minutes later, in ball time, he appeared again. It was dark out. He was standing on the head of his owner's gyrados. In the ocean. He turned around and suddenly was hit in the head by his owner. In his owner's hand was the round object. The charizard felt a strange, tingling feeling. His wings grew stronger, and a map formed in his head. Somehow, he knew exactly where he was. As he thought of other places he had been, he somehow understood exactly where they were. It was amazing!

After a few moments, the charizard started to wonder. How did his owner get the disk? He looked around, and saw. The buyer of the disk was struggling, stuck in the gyrados's jaws. Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by his owner leaping onto his back. The owner then returned the gyrados to its ball, dropping the struggling human back into the water. "Viridian City, now!" he declared. The charizard knew where that was! He had never been there, but he located it instantly on his new, mental map, and flew away obediently. Still a slave, but with a strange new freedom.

_A/N: A new challenge every week! This week's challenge: Will they beat the Elite four? If not, will they get all the badges? If not, how many will they get? At this point they have six. I love reviews._


	5. Chapter 5: Fatal Choice

Chapter 5: A fatal direction

_A/N: I'm so sorry this one is late. I was busy from 9:00 Friday morning until about 7:00 Sunday evening. I was on the computer once Saturday, but forgot._

Blam! Charizard was slammed to the ground, and then his opponent, a rhydon, leapt on him, pinning him down. He struggled, but this massive creature, larger than him, was able to keep him pinned. The rhydon's owner called out an attack and the creature started to stomp. Over and over, it crushed the dragon's chest, until his owner called him back.

Within a few moments, he was back at the hospital. He looked around and saw two strange people walk in, followed by a meowth. One was a lady with bright red hair; the other was a guy with blue hair. They walked up to the charizard's owner, and started to talk. After a moment, the charizard noticed something strange. The meowth was actually talking in the human language!

"Hey," the charizard called to him, "What are they saying?"

The meowth glared at him despicably. "None of you're beeswax."

"You're talking to my trainer," the charizard growled, "Of course it's my business."

The meowth sized him up. "You will be a nice addition to the cause," it said, then walked off.

Cause? What cause? The charizard's musings were cut short by being recaptured into his ball. Moments later, he was sent back out, directly outside the hospital. His owner leapt onto his back and gave instructions. He flew.

A few hours later, he hovered beside a small island, not far off the mainland. He saw that the island was almost completely covered by a castle, but looked abandoned. However, when he reached the front door, it opened, seemingly by itself. He flew inside and saw other doors opening before him. Following the path, flying barely off the ground, the charizard flew deeper and deeper into the castle. After a while, he reached his destination. He landed and had a few moments to see a room filled with giant glass tubes before he returned to his ball.

A few minutes later, ball time, he appeared again, this time looking at an ugly mutated-looking thing. It was much taller than him, and it looked a good bit heavier. It was purple and white with a long, fat tail. Covering its head, arms, and legs was metal armor plating. It didn't look happy.

The charizard looked around. On every side, hundreds of balls were being thrown by just as many people, unleashing pokemon everywhere. The creatures appeared, landing on what appeared to be a mass of brown hills. The charizard looked down. He was standing on one too. It was a tauros. The charizard heard a voice and looked up. The rhydon owner from before seemed to be controlling the creature. "Attack! Fly!" called his owner. The fight began.

The fight ended quickly. The strange, mutated creature waited for a moment as everything else charged it, then casually waved its hand. Pokemon flew through the air, launched by the invisible wave of power. In one sweep of his hand, the mutant had destroyed most of his opposition. What was this thing? The charizard dodged the first wave, and then next few also because he had gone up so high. Now there were only two pokemon left. No, make that three, a dugtrio burst out of the ground under the creature, but was promptly thrown away. Seeing the distraction, the charizard zoomed down, going faster and faster and… he stopped. At the last second, the creature had thrown up its hand and stopped him. As it focused on him, a farfetch'd made its move, but was also stopped. Suddenly, a machamp launched out of the ground, hitting the creature and sending it flying. As it flew through the air, it slammed the farfetch'd and the charizard into the machamp's side, crushing the three together. As he faded out of consciousness, the charizard saw the strange creature clench up for a moment, and its wounds disappeared.

Much later, the charizard woke up. He looked around. The machamp was gone, but the farfetch'd was still on the ground. It was still breathing, but not everything in the field was. The stench was unbearable. He got up and checked himself out. One leg appeared broken, but the rest of him seemed fine. Suddenly, he wondered why he wasn't in his ball. Where was his slaver?

He looked around, and then saw him. The man who had caused him so much trouble was crushed under a six-hundred pound bolder, also known as a golem. Strangely, he felt no uncontrollable force pushing him to roll it off. That's when he knew that the boy was dead.

Suddenly, he heard a human cry. "A charizard!" He spun around, and saw a human charging toward him, alongside a blastoise. He flew off, far from the death, far from the stench.

He flew up onto the castle towers, and surveyed the area. So much death. So much destruction. Then he heard an explosion, saw men flying through the air, dying. The monster came out. Its armor was gone, but it was unmistakable. It turned around and looked at him. The charizard quickly few away.

He flew home. It wasn't hard to find the general area, but once he was there, the search became much harder. Everything was so much smaller than it used to be. Eventually he found his old home. His mother and the sandslash were gone. Suddenly, it started to rain. In the old familiar way, he slipped his tail inside the hole, and watched the rain fall down.

_A/N: A new challenge every week! This week's challenge: How many tie-ins to what pokemon story did I have? What characters did I have that I didn't make up? What was the TM I referred to in my disclaimer way back in chapter 1? I love reviews._

_Anyone for a poll? My profile has a poll on what I will write next. A popular idea is more likely, but not necessarily where I will go next or ever._


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